that a man in his position should make
such a choice?"

"He loved her, no doubt," suggested Clarence; "and she was almost white."

"How could he love her?" asked she, wonderingly. "Love a coloured woman! I
cannot conceive it possible," said she, with a look of disgust; "there is
something strange and unnatural about it."

"No, no," he rejoined, hurriedly, "it was love, Anne,--pure love; it is not
impossible. I--I--" "am coloured," he would have said; but he paused and
looked full in her lovely face. He could not tell her,--the words slunk
back into his coward heart unspoken.

She stared at him in wonder and perplexity, and exclaimed,--"Dear Clarence,
how strangely you act! I am afraid you are not well. Your brow is hot,"
said she, laying her hand on his forehead; "you have been travelling too
much for your strength."

"It is not that," he replied. "I feel a sense of suffocation, as if all the
blood was rushing to my throat. Let me get the air." And he rose and walked
to the window. Anne hastened and brought him a glass of water, of which he
drank a little, and then declared himself better.

After this, he stood for a long time with her clasped in his arms; then
giving her one or two passionate kisses, he strained her closer to him and
abruptly left the house, leaving Little Birdie startled and alarmed by his
strange behaviour.

CHAPTER XXXII.

Dear Old Ess again.

Let us visit once more the room from which Mr. Walters and his friends made
so brave a defence. There is but little in its present appearance to remind
one of that eventful night,--no reminiscences of that desperate attack,
save the bullet-hole in the ceiling, which Mr. Walters declares shall
remain unfilled as an evidence of the marked attention he has received at
the hands of his fellow-citizens.

There are several noticeable additions to the furniture of the apartment;
amongst them an elegantly-carved work-stand, upon which some unfinished
articles of children's apparel are lying; a capacious rocking-chair, and
grand piano.

Then opposite to the portrait of Toussaint is suspended another picture,
which no doubt holds a higher position in the regard of the owner of the
mansion than the African warrior aforesaid. It is a likeness of the lady
who is sitting at the window,--Mrs. Esther Walters, _nee_ Ellis. The brown
baby in the picture is the little girl at her side,--the elder sister of
the other brown baby who is doing its best to pull fro